Sleep and maternity leave

[Aquariass]

Hi all.

I’m hoping to get some opinions on this scenario to share with my partner.

Our second born is almost 5 months old. I breastfed exclusively for three months and now combi feed. I am on mat leave and my partner works full time.

Now, I do 95% of night wakings throughout the week and on weekends. My partner will tell me to wake him if I need help which I try not to do but have done a handful of times when I really needed an extra hand.

Last night was rough, I haven’t slept properly in four weeks and I am running on adrenaline. My partner also coaches sport two nights a week and plays matches all day every Saturday, so a significant portion of parenting falls on me with little time to rest. This morning my four year old woke at 5:30 and was being noisy and asking ti go downstairs. I asked her to wake her dad so that I could get some extra sleep. He told her he needed five more minutes, so she inevitably came back in to me and was crying and asking me to wake up. I was beyond angry at this because he knows how poorly I have been sleeping due to our son being awake during the night for 3 hour stretches.

He get up shortly after me and asked why I was moody, I explained I’m exhausted and frustrated that he didn’t just wake up when our daughter came to him.

He absolutely does not see my point and said he needed that time to slowly wake up, but he knows by telling her to go she will just come and ask me. I feel so unheard and I feel this is unfair. All I expect him to do is wake up with her when I’ve done all night every night for the last five months bar a handful where he’s given our son the odd bottle.

How is the division of nights and mornings shared in other households? I feel he thinks I can rest in the day, I can’t because our son only cat naps.

Sorry to hear you're going through this. I have a 3 year old and a 4 month old and my baby is another cat napper.

My husband deals with the 3 year old during the night and gets him ready in the mornings. I do all the night wakings for the baby. Your situation sounds really unfair.

Regarding "He listened and says he understands and supports me" he reminds me of Paul from motherland...

What did he say to your ranty voice notes?
It's bang out of order that you're run ragged and he does coaching AND a long day of sport on a Saturday and then has the cheek to say he wants his immediate family around on a Sunday. Fuck off sunshine!

Having enough sleep would matter a lot more for a heart surgeon than a shop assistant.

Is he making any compromises at all given that he has 2 small children?

Does he actually want to see his kids

The biggest issue here seems to be the coaching/sport taking up so much time. Sounds like he needs to seriously cut back on this until the children are much bigger.
Thats not to say he shouldn’t have hobbies/leisure time, but sounds like he has it all and you have none. Share it out.

I do 99% overnight for our breast fed 10 month old who only feeds to sleep and mostly co-sleeps. DH deals with 99% from DD4 which includes 7-8am and he takes the baby if he’s awake then so I get a lie in on week days.
We’re going to sleep train and aim to reduce night feeds before I go back to work though.

I have an almost 3 week old and a 3.5 year old. DH has just gone back to work.

He gets up with the 3 year old when she wakes and lets me have a extra hour in bed before starting work and then wakes me to dress her for school etc.

Baby is combi fed, we generally share the night wakings as at the moment baby is fairly quick to feed and resettle. On the weekend we take it in turns to have a lie in. 1 day each.

I do think your husband is taking the Mick. He should be getting up with your older child so you have some extra sleep x

I was a SAHM and did all the night wakenings with all of mine, as I was BFding. The weekend mornings however, once past the am BF, was split between DH and I. Our 'lie in' was until 0800, as DS had a habit of waking at 0535 on the dot.

But surely even a heart surgeon would recognise his wife is destroyed and maybe give her some time at the weekend instead of all of the social things he's doing. The job isn't relevant to the weekly pattern of him not giving her any support.

it mostly certainly is “relevant”!

And i speak from the perspective who had a husband that returned to work after 3 days of paternity leave and i had no family network whatsoever (parents deceased)

He did not a night time waking during the week and actually not at the weekend either because he was generally working over the weekend or pretty much comatose

why did i accept and support this? because it his the business that he had built for 20 years and had 52 people depending on him for their salaries and pensions, including me! - and he needed to work every hour he could.

So it is relevant But the man in the OP’s situation is a different breed entirely . The nighttime issue is the tip of the ice burg if a deeply unpleasant man in many respects

I have told him I’m not willing to put up with this anymore. I have a very supportive family and would cope without him, as I practically do now anyway. I have told him he needs to sort his shit out or I’ll leave because the resentment is hurting my soul and sucking the enjoyment out of my life to be frank.

and? you finish with that but the key is… what was his response?

Who cares what his job is? My OH is directly below CEO and he does all the wake ups (and most of the bed times!) for our 3 year old because I have the 5 month old.

He sounds like my husband too! First time round he did try to get up with the baby but was so useless he would have to get me up every time to ask how to do the most basic tasks that he’d done 20 times before (like putting on a nappy) 🙈 It would then involve the two of us being up and yet he would count that as him taking his turn. This time round I have let him sleep from when he went back to work after paternity leave. There were a few nights though where the baby was awake for so long and I felt like I was going to fall asleep holding her so would have to get him up to take a turn. He would regularly hear her wake during the night too and turn on the white noise machine (when there was no chance that was going to be enough) then he’d go back to sleep.

I eventually cracked and said to him that I couldn’t do it myself all day and night. I think he just needed his selfishness really spelled out to him then he seemed to get it and has been more helpful since.

Its also this notion of them ‘helping’ us, like it’s our baby and not theirs 😂

as above

“Wake up slowly” my arse

Was he the same with your first DC?

The idea he should be able to ‘wake up slowly’ is hilarious. Do you get to wake up slowly?

We have a 6 month old who now wakes a few times during the night (2-3). During the week I do night time whilst my husband gets up with him in the morning. Then we switch around at the weekend. it can be hard if he wakes a lot during the night but it generally feels fair to me.

Just popping on to update. He moved an appointment in work in response to my voice notes and came home early, then did the school run with me.

At home he said he’s sorry for not seeing how much it affected me and for allowing it to get to this point.

He is not going to go to the match tomorrow so that we can do the full weekend together and he’s also told me to go for a drink with my friend tonight and he will have the kids. I’m way too tired for a drink but I’m going anyway because I need the break and I want to accept the olive branch.

More was discussed about going forward and I just hope this continues. I don’t want to get to this point again, the resentment inside me was crippling.

For the poster who asked, he’s a sales manager, not a heart surgeon!

Yeah what I'm saying is its not relevant in this situation when he has so much social time, totally different to what you describe. I dont all waking nights when mine were little too when my DH worked, he helped at the weekend to at least give me 1 sleep in.

This sounds really postive. Glad to hear it.